


Fader

by bluerosebouquet



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Tony Stark Has A Heart, hi guys i love tony stark more than anything thanks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 11:08:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19208146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluerosebouquet/pseuds/bluerosebouquet
Summary: Tony Stark's last moments.





	Fader

The light blinds him.  He doesn’t even feel the pain anymore, the radiating, burning pain that makes his arm feels like it’s been dipped in radioactive acid and left there for about three days.  

He only had to think about it.  I want them gone, all of them.  From Thanos to those weird flying worm Chitauri things.  I am Iron Man.  A snap of his fingers.

The light fades, and even though he knows that this is it, this is the end, he sees his handiwork.  He sees them dissolve, from the Chitauri to Thanos’ children.  And then, finally Thanos himself.  It’s fiercely gratifying for Tony, to see Thanos sink to the ground, watching his whole army, everything that he cared about, turn to dust before his eyes.

He remembers, with savage pleasure, Thanos’ words to him.  _I hope they remember you, Stark._   He didn’t know if the world would, but he knew that they would. Steve, Rhodey, Happy, Bruce Peter…Pepper and Morgan.  They would remember him.  He hoped they wouldn’t just remember him the way others would, for defeating Thanos or whatever.  He hoped they would remember him for the stupid jokes he told, his hugs, maybe his smile.  That’s what he wanted to be remembered for.  The giver of juice pops, a mechanic, a friend, a father, the best goddamn kisser Virginia Pepper Potts had ever met.

After Thanos dissolved, the pain came back with a force that Tony had never experienced before.  He had always thought that he had about the best pain tolerance of anyone in the world.  He can still remember getting blown up by his own missle, lying in the sun-baked dirt in Afghanistan the shrapnel in his chest already working its way to his heart.  He can still remember Yinsen cutting him open, saving his life.  He remembers the cardiac arrest, being shot, beaten, blown up, whipped with electric whips, being stabbed with his own nanotech blade, and don’t even get him started on the non-physical pain.  He’s lost so much, and even though this pain is far worse than anything he had ever experienced, it came with a sense of peace.

He sinks to the ground in the middle of the rubble of the compound, leaning against what must have been a wall once, and he tries to breathe, even as FRIDAY is spouting off system failures in his ear.  Breathing hurts, and his arm feels like a used matchstick: brittle and blackened, with only six tony dots of color glowing in the twisted metal of the suit that he had worked so hard to perfect.

He sees Rhodey come into his field of vision.  It’s unspoken, everything that needs to be said between them. The stupid pet names, the hugs, the last 30 years of their lives didn’t need to be talked about.  But he hopes, in his eyes, which he has to force to stay open, that he can say thank you to Rhodey.  Thank him for saving him with a joke in the deserts of Afghanistan, thank him for the support, constant support, even in his darkest moments, and thank him for being the type of friend that most people only dream of.

Steve runs into his field of vision.  Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, Steve.  It took them years to see past what made them different and embrace what made them similar, what made them friends.  He had spent so much time angry at Steve, angry at what he   He sees Steve crying, holding onto Rhodey, and he feels guilty for leaving Steve like this.  He wants to make a dumb joke, make Steve laugh, break the tension, but he didn’t have the energy for that. Tony was glad that they were able to heal, even if they won’t be able to enjoy the healing for as long as they thought.

Bruce.  Hulk?  No, it’s Bruce.  Bruce limps into his field of vision, one arm as twisted and blackened as his own.  He was right, Tony couldn’t survive snapping his fingers, but since when had he ever listened to reason anyway.  He looked at Bruce with pride.  He remembered, all those years ago when he had told him, _you’re tip-toeing big man, you’ve gotta strut_ , and Bruce had finally figured out a way to do just that.  He loves Bruce like a brother, and he hopes that Bruce knew that, even as he struggles to push the pain away, stave off the inevitable so he could take in the beauty of the world, his world.

Then there’s Peter, swinging in and collapsing in front of him.  Tony feels a little guilty, as his eyes darken a little more, to be leaving the kid like this.  There are things he wants to tell him, that’s he’s proud of him, that he missed him, that he loves him.  He wants to be there for Peter, give him the kind of relationship he never had with his father.  He hears Peter say he’s sorry, and if one arm wasn’t useless and the other too weak, he would reach out to him, tell him not to worry.  It’s not like he knew where he was going, but he would tell Peter he was going to a better place.  Peter cries, and it breaks Tony’s heart into a million pieces.  

And then there she is.  In that blue suit that he made in the color of the dress she wore when they danced for the first time.  She had been there through everything.  Through the playboy weapons builder, through the kidnapping, through Iron Man, through Vanko, through New York, through his obsessive suit building, through Thanos, through the Snap, through his terror of being a father, through every single bit of life he always thought was too difficult to love him through.  And now, through this.  

He can only whisper it, but she needs to know that he can hear her, that he’s still there.

“Hey Pep.”

She kneels down beside him, puts her hand over his fading arc-reactor, and hears FRIDAY say his life functions are critical.  Something they both already knew. He looks away from her, so tired, but she calls his name, and he looks back at her, beautiful in a trillion different ways.  She says his name, and he thinks of all the ways he could tell her that he loves her, that he loves her and Morgan more than every circuit in his suit, more than every star in the Universe, more than every drop of water in the heaving oceans.

“We’re gonna be okay.”

How does she know exactly what he needs to hear?  He wants to ask her how she knows him better than he knows himself, how she can be the most amazing mother, wife, fighter, warrior, gardener, composter, and still manage to find time to understand the intricacies of the machine inside his head better than he ever could.

He wants to ask, but it hurts to breathe.  The world is getting dark, and holding up his head to meet her eyes is getting harder by the second.  She seems to know this, because he hears her say,

“You can rest now.”

He wants to make sure that her eyes are the last thing he sees.  And as the pain fades slowly into the darkness, he smiles, knowing that he is loved.  He is loved not only for the things he’s done for the world, but for the things he’s done for the people that he loves the most.  He looks at Pepper, the most stunning thing that no one but the heavens could have created, and he smiles, sighs, and his arc-reactor gently fades to black.

**Author's Note:**

> Not Stony? Astonishing.  
> I am just so angst-ridden about his death it's really not fair (also the Endgame viewing count is at six).


End file.
